


to keep you warm

by crickets



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-22
Updated: 2010-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:06:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets





	to keep you warm

River stays with him whenever her brother's gone. It's nothing he shares with the rest of the crew and she's back into her own bed by the morning anyway.

It makes sense. She feels he can protect her, and anything he had against her once has long since been forgiven.

It's innocent.

 _Innocent_.

-

She has these nightmares. She wakes and screams and Jayne just climbs into the bed with her and holds her, kisses her forehead, tucks her hair behind her ears.

"They won't ever stop," she tells him one night, but Jayne only shushes her and tells her she's wrong, tells her they'll go away and she'll be her again.

He can't remember the last time he was that human with anyone.

-

Soon, River's taken to sneaking into his room even when Simon's not off somewhere.

Jayne doesn't mention this either. Logic says that if he doesn't mention this he won't have to worry with mentioning that he doesn't even bother sleeping on the floor anymore.

"You're warm," she tells him, one night. "You keep away the dreams."

Jayne can't remember the last time she woke with a start. Can't remember a night she wasn't in his arms.

-

She kisses him one night, full on the lips and her tongue seeking, teeth biting.

He pulls back, searches her face.

"I'm not a little girl anymore, Jayne Cobb," she tells him matter-of-fact.

"No. No, you ain't," he agrees, kisses her again, hard, lets his hands roam places they've kept far away from for the near year she's been sleeping in his bed.

She makes soft sounds, not like the women he usually keeps. And she feels like butterflies under his palms, and it makes him slower, surer than he ever has been. She wraps herself around him and becomes his undoing, all while being undone.

"No little girl," she whispers again and again.

Jayne kisses her when she comes, helps her ride it out, tells her he won't let anything happen to her.

River, sated, runs a hand through his hair.

"I know," she tells him. "I know."

 _-fin_


End file.
